Ashley House And Attached Railings

Ashley House is a small country house dating from the early 19th century, although it may incorporate elements of an earlier 18th-century building recorded on the site. The house is constructed of stucco with stucco bands, and has dry slate roofs, with pyramidal forms over the entrance bays, and two brick stacks, along with two rendered stacks.

The house has an L-shaped plan, with a quadrant-plan entrance front which contains a large entrance and stair hall filling the angle. A parlour is located in front of the kitchen in the left-hand wing, while the other wing features a principal parlour with a bowed rear end; part of the rounded space behind the bow contains cupboards facing a passage.

The symmetrical, bowed entrance front has three windows, with original hornless sash windows and thin glazing bars. Ground floor windows have fanlight heads in round-arched openings, and a similar fanlight features above the central doorway. The doorway has a pair of panelled and glazed doors, with sidelights that continue as a fanlight surround. Tripartite basement sashes are blind, flanking steps. The basement is treated as a plinth with a band that breaks back over the recessed window panels, a sill band to the first-floor windows, and a moulded eaves cornice. Projecting canted bays with Gothic traceried heads to the sashes are situated at the front ends of the wings on either side of the bowed entrance. A six-panel door with a traceried overlight is featured in the right-hand return.

The interior retains many original features, including an L-plan staircase with an open well and a curved wreathed mahogany handrail over a newel and stick balusters. Doorways have moulded architraves and six-panel doors with inner beaded panels. Marble chimneypieces with consoles adorn the principal parlour, and the plaster band has a reeded moulding.

The property is complemented by curved flights of freestone steps from the left and right of the doorway, leading up to the landing, with wrought-iron railings on either side.